


but if I kiss you, will your mouth read this truth

by ourowninfinity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt Tony, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, and so will Dummy, steve loves to draw, steve will keep tony safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:51:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourowninfinity/pseuds/ourowninfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'It starts out as an ache, a dull throbbing where the metal meets bone; his hand finds its way back to the arc reactor, the memory of cold fingers yanking it from his chest still lingering like a ghost, heavy on his ribcage and his heart.  <em>You aren’t safe</em>, it says, <em>you’re never safe</em>'</p><p>Tony's not okay, it should have been obvious</p>
            </blockquote>





	but if I kiss you, will your mouth read this truth

It starts out as an ache, a dull throbbing where the metal meets bone; his hand finds its way back to the arc reactor, the memory of cold fingers yanking it from his chest still lingering like a ghost, heavy on his ribcage and his heart. _You aren’t safe_ , it says, _you’re never safe_. A metal claw grasps at his shirt and tugs, whining loudly as it vies for Tony’s attention, and just like that the pain is gone.

“Hey bud, what’s the matter?” he asks, his hand finding its way to the joint in the robots arm to pat it, Dummy just clutches onto Tony tighter and starts rolling across the workshop, pulling the man along, his soft whirring distressing his creator,

“Jarv, what’s going on with Dummy?”

“It appears Sir, that Dummy is trying the method of gentle persuasion” the AI replied, obviously amused at the notion,

“You’re gonna have to give me more than that” Tony states, his tone almost pleading, as Dummy tries to coax him towards the glass door.

“It would seem that Dummy is trying to get you to rest Sir” Jarvis answers, and continues before Tony can open his mouth to object, “You have been awake for 39 hours Sir, it would be advisable to take a break; I have instructions to notify Steve if you don’t leave the workshop for a period of 40 hours or more”

The memory of being carried bodily from his workshop one day last week after he’d spent two solid days on the Mark 53 reappeared in Tony’s mind, accompanied by a sting of embarrassment at falling asleep in Steve’s arms before they’d even reached the penthouse. “Et tu Jarvis?” He had grumbled when he returned to the workshop the next afternoon, his bad mood worsened by the fact that he couldn’t stop the weird fond feeling he felt every time he thought of Steve.

Tony relents and sighs heavily,

“You know what J, I’ll go upstairs now and catch some sleep, maybe I’ll even shower and change my jeans, but you have to call Pepper and come up with an excuse as to why I can’t make that Executives Meeting tomorrow”

He smirks, taking the silence that he’s met with as a reluctant agreement, he knows how much Jarvis hates lying to Pepper, and strokes Dummy one last time before opening the door and trudging up the stairs.

That night, after he had flung himself onto his bed, it returned. An echo of pain, tendrils of it seeming to reach into his chest and clutch around the arc reactor; paralysed with fear he lay there, willing his heart to stop rabbiting out of his chest. His ragged breathing alerted Jarvis that Tony was in danger and the AI made the decision to call on Steve without alerting his master. A few seconds passed and then Steve was yanking the door open, running straight to Tony’s side to assess the situation

“Tony it’s going to be alright, you’re okay” he tried, the encouragements failing to console Tony who was now crying silent tears that racked his body,

Steve stared at his friend’s bare chest for a few seconds before reaching out to place a comforting hand on it, but Tony’s hand suddenly flew out to stop him, and Steve could see the terror in his eyes. He retracted his hand and chose to reach for Tony’s shoulder instead, squeezing it in a way that Steve hopes he finds comforting, his other hand going up to Tony’s hair to drag through it. Tentatively, he climbed onto the bed before drawing the other man to him, Tony surprising both of them when he didn’t struggle to get away; Steve carried on moving his hand through Tony’s hair whilst holding him close and he could see that it was working. Jarvis dimmed the lights that he had turned on when Steve arrived and they both fell into a deep sleep. When Steve woke up the next morning, Tony was long gone, leaving only a dent in the bed and an ache in Steve’s heart.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the weeks after the first incident, the only time they see each other is the nights when Jarvis quietly notifies Steve that Tony needs his help again, the older man choosing to actively avoid him during the daytime in what Steve assumes to be an attempt to avoid telling him things. But now that he knows that Tony is not, in fact, okay, he wonders how other people haven’t managed to see it. How do they not notice that he always moves in a way that allows him to face the door, so that he can spot any incoming threats; how do they not notice the way he flinches when they get too near to his chest or when Barton shot at his arc reactor with a Nerf gun; how do they not notice that when they get the call to assemble, his hand subconsciously flies up to his chest. He’s at a loss, they all love Tony, him more than most, but he can’t help fix the problem unless he knows what it is.

Another week passes by and Steve spends three of his nights calming Tony down. If he’s honest with himself, he kind of enjoys getting to be close to Tony, and even though he knows that he can never be with him in the way that he wants to, he still gets to spend hours with him in his arms. On the nights when he’s not tired, he studies Tony’s face: the way his eyelashes fan out, the tired purple under his eyes, the cut of his cheekbones and the slope of his nose, and burns his features into his brain so that he can draw them the next day.

The following Thursday is the first time in six weeks that Tony has spoken to Steve, sure Iron Man and Captain America talk during battles but that’s not them, they’re lying in the bed when it happens, Steve’s arm wrapped protectively around Tony’s shoulder as he wipes the tears off of the other man’s face,

“Thank you” is all Tony rasps before he closes his eyes and latches his hand onto Steve’s shirt, but it’s enough to make Steve grin happily for an entire week.

It gets to week eight and Steve’s been drawing Tony almost daily, some days he uses charcoal, some days pencil, but he can’t ever seem to get the mouth right. He can capture the defiant glint that somehow refuses to escape Tony’s eyes no matter the situation, but the moment that he tries to draw the honesty on Tony’s lips it fails horribly. So the next time that Jarvis wakes him up, he deliberates for a second before snatching up his pencils and sketch pad and running towards the elevator.

Steve was not expecting Tony to wake up. Not once in the whole time they’d been doing this had he woke up after he’d originally gone to sleep. Steve comforts him and waits for him to fall asleep like usual but then he grabs his art supplies, sits down cross legged on the bed and begins sketching the outline of Tony’s jaw, the sleeping man’s face lit by the soft glow of the bedside lamp; he finishes the basic shape and begins on the mouth, his pencil making broad strokes as he smiles at his work. Two months and he’s finally managed to capture Tony’s mouth, he celebrates silently and glances over to Tony’s face to get a reference for the details on the eyelashes when he sees that Tony is awake. Tony is awake and staring right at him. Tony is awake and knows that Steve was drawing him. His eyes dart back down to the sketchbook in his hands, he snaps it shut and forces himself to look at Tony once again; he swallows slowly and waits for Tony to get mad at him for breaking his trust, for taking advantage of the situation. So when Tony’s hand appears on top of the sketchbook and tries to pry it from his hands, he immediately relinquishes it and looks away, giving the other man some privacy to figure out what he’s going to say to Steve.

Tony glances down at the book in his hands, he’s hesitant to open it for fear the Steve has managed to capture him accurately when his guard is down; but he steels himself and flips open to the first page, confused when he sees that it isn’t a drawing of him sleeping but of him leaning against a pillar, dressed in the suit that he wore to the Stark Industries Gala last month. The next page is a drawing of him crouched down next to Dummy, screwdriver in hand as he tinkers with his circuit board; and the page after that is him all sleep ruffled, drinking his fifth cup of coffee whilst he leans on the counter in the kitchen. And after that there’s a coloured sketch of him in the Iron Man suit, faceplate up as he talks to Clint after battle; Tony turns the pages and finds that the drawings all become more similar, portraits of just his face, all of the details beautifully drawn but the mouth rubbed out and blank. He makes a small noise that Steve can’t distinguish as he flips through the pages of the book faster and faster until he reaches the last one, he physically jerks back when he sees it. It’s the basic outline of his face, fully relaxed and asleep, the only detail fully drawn are his lips, and he doesn’t know how but it looks so… honest, so heartbreakingly honest and so unlike the smirks that people always draw him with that his heart stops.He stares at it for a long while, stares at the book in his hands and thinks about what it means, what Steve means.

Steve who comes running whenever Tony feels like he’s drowning, Steve who holds him tight and tells him it’s going to be okay, Steve who never pushes him to explain why he can’t hold himself together, Steve who takes the broken pieces of Tony and keeps them safe when he can’t do it himself. He looks up at Steve’s face and sees the pain and the guilt, but also the heartbreak and the air rushes out of his lungs when he realises what it all means.

“You love me” Tony says quietly, as if he is afraid to be too loud, to make the words sound harsh or accusing.

Steve blinks, taken aback by both the statement and his tone, but he recovers quickly and stares right back into Tony’s eyes.

“I do” he replies, just as quietly but with all the conviction in the world.

Tony can feel his face growing more and more confused because he just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how Steve can’t see how fucked up he is, how Steve managed to spend all of these nights comforting him as he sobs and screams without realising how messed up Tony is. He looks up at the confusion now mirrored in Steve’s face and he knows there and then that he has to explain himself because Steve needs to hear it, needs to see how unworthy Tony is.

“There was a man” Tony begins, unable to look at anything other than his own hands as he tells the story,

“There was a man called Obadiah, we’d always been close, I trusted him, and when I was seventeen my parents died in a car crash”

Steve makes a sound like a wounded animal and reaches for Tony’s hand, taking it into his own wordlessly, Tony takes it as a sign to continue,

“Obie was my mentor, ever since that day, he helped me run the company, but then I went to Afghanistan to show off some new tech to the army and I got bombed and kidnapped”

Tony feels Steve squeeze his hand, he swallows and carries on,

“I, I have shrapnel. In my chest. It- Yinsen, he hooked me up. To a car battery, electromagnet y’know, it stops the shrapnel from reaching my heart. Yinsen died and I escaped. But when I got home, Obie was being strange, he – he. He pulled the arc reactor out of my chest and left me for dead, later I found out he ordered the strike in Afghanistan too. I trusted him with everything and he tried to kill me”

Tony looks up at Steve imploringly now,

“Don’t you see Steve, I’m not good. I’m all broken and fucked up and I’ll just be lying there and the pain will come back, I feel his fingers clawing at my chest and I lose it. And you deserve someone better Steve you –“

“No” Steve interrupts angrily, his grip on Tony’s hand almost painful, “You don’t get to decide. You don’t get to decide if you deserve my love, you have it and that’s it. I. Love. You. And I hate that you had to go through all of those horrible experiences, and even if you hate me and never want to talk to me again then I’ll still help you when you need it, you deserve to be happy Tony. You’re a good person”

“I don’t hate you Steve” Tony murmurs, resigned now he knows he can’t change Steve’s mind, “I could never hate you”

He leans up and kisses Steve on the cheek, before looking at him and slowly guiding Steve’s hand up his chest, until it rests lightly over his arc reactor. He takes a deep breath and tries to crush the panic that he feels, it subsides when he sees Steve’s face as he traces the circle of metal; he’s seen a lot of different reactions to his chest before – horror, disgust, sympathy, but he’s never seen awe.

Steve is gentle, fingers dancing over the patterns, he’s realised the weight of this moment and the trust that Tony is putting in him so he’s careful, more careful than he’s ever been before. Tony starts to talk and Steve feels the rumbling motions of it vibrate through his hand,

“I’m not good with this kind of thing Steve, I mess things up, I forget things, are you sure you want me?”

Steve replies by reaching down to kiss him gently, his hands moving to cup Tony’s face, holding him as if he were made of glass; he pulls back a few seconds later and whispers,

“Always”

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first time I've actually finished a piece of writing so I hope it's okay :)
> 
> The title comes from Ed Sheeran's 'Little Bird' because it fuels my dreams of Steve and Tony keeping each other safe


End file.
